The Road of Honor
by Delathen
Summary: Naruto has walked many roads. The road of hope, the road of despair, the road of strength. See him walk a new road, the Road of Honor, with the help of a sensei who's spent years breaking the way before him. OC-sensei, eventual NaruHina, Optimist!Naruto


**AN: This is my first new story in quite some time, and my first in the Naruto-verse. I've been lurking and reading several Naruto stories where he finds himself an actual decent instructor, and decided I wanted to take my own shot at this kind of fic.**

**Naruto has always, in my opinion, been about strong convictions and where they will take you. Much like Evangelion is about the extremes of human emotion, Naruto is about the extremes of goals. Each major character has a deeply-ingrained goal that they strive for, and each shape the world with their ambition. In the end, we know that Naruto will come out on top (Kishimoto isn't the type to write a bad ending), but what if he had a teacher that didn't try to persuade him out of his goals (like Jiraiya telling him to forget about Sasuke), but supported him wholeheartedly?**

**Note, there will be an OC taking an important role in this story, and at least for the first few chapters, will likely be the primary focus. As I get used to writing again, I'll shift gears back to our favorite blond and what kind of difference a fully-supportive teacher figure will have on his life.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto or Naruto:Shippuden. They are the property of Masashi Kishimoto, and I'm merely playing around with his characters ^_^**

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** -** The Road of Honor **- **

**Chapter One: Introductions**

A silent wind raised the barest blush of dust along the path as a stolid figure made his way on the quiet track. The broad sleeves of his off-white haori gently rippled as his sandaled footfalls added to the travel-stains on his dark hakama. His hair did not wave in the breeze, for he had none.

As the sun reached its zenith, the man slowed to a stop in a copse of trees to give his feet a brief respite. Once he sat himself on a fallen log, he unwrapped a bundle that was attached to his obi. The simple travel rations were sparse and unappetizing, but the bald man ate them without complaint. His sharp brown eyes made a lazy circuit of the path as though he were expecting to see a fellow traveler on the road.

His patience went unrewarded as after several minutes his solitude remained unbroken. Without a sound, the dark-skinned man that one could almost confuse with a native of Kaminari no Kuni shifted the black-hilted and sheathed katana at his side briefly as he stood to resume his journey. The tan sack he carried needed its own roll of his shoulders to get comfortably situated before he began walking again.

Dusty hours later, the man approached a series of cliffs that overshadowed the roads of northern Hi no Kuni.

In an instant, the quiet of the afternoon was broken as a loud _THUMP_ echoed above the swordsman's head and a large cloud of dust obscured the top of the cliff he was walking under.

In less than that instant, the slow shuffle turned into a swift leap as the swordsman's blade swept from its sheath in a wide arc. Had there not been an explosion drowning it, one would have heard as the katana seemed to cut the air itself.

Brown eyes alert, the man heard the cliff above him groan as loose soil and pebbles began to rain down on him. Sheathing his sword, he swiftly ran into the trees on the other side of the path as the pebble become fist-sized, and finally the whole side of the hill began sliding down with a loud roar as the trunks around him began creaking under the strain before several shattered, adding their cacophony to the din.

Finally the landslide slowed to a halt, a few loose pebbles making their final clatter down the new slope that buried the path the swordsman had been walking on moments earlier in tons of rock. Stepping out from behind the thick oak he had used as a barrier between him and the rock-fall, the man lightly patted his lower body to rid himself of the worst of the dust.

Eyes sharp, the man glared at the ruined path as though it had insulted him, and narrowed his gaze as it slid upward, to the source of the dust cloud that seemed to have started the past several harrowing moments. A low growl began in his throat before he heard something he really didn't expect to hear.

A series of coughs, from a young boy by the sound.

Eyes glued to the top of the slope, the man's ears strained to pinpoint the source of the perplexing noise, and he found himself turning to the worst of the rubble pile that had slid through a number of trees. There his sight was pulled from the cliff-top to a bright and shocking flash of orange, tinged with red.

A young boy, of perhaps twelve or thirteen, lay on top of the rocks, his left arm hanging loose in its sleeve, and a pained look on his innocent face. His orange jumpsuit was scuffed and torn in places, and the white collar had wide splotches of blood from a cut down the boy's cheek and jaw.

Ears now focused on the cliff – and source of his newfound ire – the man lightly stepped over the still settling rocks and boulders to reach the blonde child. His hands were in the tan sack he had been carrying over his shoulder, and if anything, his already piercing gaze became something strong enough to drill through stone as the sound of the boy's coughs became wet and more blood joined the stains on his collar from his mouth.

Reaching the broken body, the man found himself gazing into bright blue eyes that shined with tears and hope. What the boy hoped for, he didn't know, but as soon as the boy realized that a stranger was standing over him, the eyes shifted to a glare.

"What the hell are you looking at dattebayo!" a scratchy voice that would be considered intimidating if it had the depth of puberty behind it shouted at the swordsman. "Come to finish the job?!"

The man paused in digging into his sack as his glare lost some of its intensity.

"No. I do not know what brought the cliff down, but I was nearly caught as well."

The boy seemed to consider this before a new series of wet coughs began spasming through his chest, his shoulders rising and falling as he winced in pain, more blood splattering up and staining his clothes.

"You are injured. I will treat you, if you let me."

The deep and even voice seemed to calm the boy slightly before his glare returned full force. "How do I know you won't hurt me?" he all but shouted, heat and – was that fear? – tinging his voice.

"I do not betray. If I want you dead, you will die, but I will not hide behind a mask of friendship."

Somehow this seemed to affect the boy more than the man expected as he looked at the swordsman blankly for a few moments before a new set of coughs, quieter this time, interrupted the silence.

"Okay. But no funny stuff!" the boy seemed to growl. Like his first shout, it would have been intimidating, had it been an octave lower, and the very clear hesitation a little better masked.

"No funny stuff," the man agreed with a slight nod, though his blank tone made it impossible to hear if he was amused or not.

A small wooden box found its way out of the tan sack, and a smaller jar of a thick ointment found its way out of the box as the man twisted the cap off and began dabbing a clean rag with the ointment. He pressed the rag against the boy's bleeding cheek to stem the flow of blood.

"Hold this tight against the cut – not enough to cause pain," the man commanded in a gentler tone as the boy lightly twitched under the feel of the rough fabric on an open wound. "You are taking this better than most boys I know. Give them a scrape like that and most children will start crying."

"I'm a -.. I'm used to pain," the boy started loudly before cutting himself off, his voice meeker. Nonetheless, his right arm reached over and pressed the rag into his cheek.

"I see. That may come in handy with your arm. As best I can tell, you've dislocated your shoulder, and I will need to put it back in," the swordsman said, one hand on said shoulder and the other gripped onto the wounded boy's upper arm. "When you are ready, I will do so."

"Okay, on thre-OWW! What the hell dattebayo! I wasn't ready!" the boy hissed loudly as the man swiftly jabbed his arm back into place.

"I find the tensing that comes when you expect this to be more painful than the actual treatment," the man unapologetically replied. "Now let's take a look at your ribs. Do you feel like you can move?"

"Yeah. My chest hurts, but not as bad as I've had it before," the boy answered back, slowly rolling his newly-reset left shoulder as feeling came back into his hand in the form of pins and needles.

"Good. I need you to sit up, and take off the top part of your jumpsuit."

At that moment, the sound of a small pile of pebbles shifting reached the swordsman's ears, and he leapt up, his hands on the handle and sheath of his sword, respectively. Paranoid? Perhaps, but when the black-cloaked figure that had miss-stepped on the treacherous slope of the landslide jumped at him, the man felt fully justified in never lowering his guard.

Small blades appeared in the figure's hands as the man drew his sword in a flash, this time the light _SWIISH_ fully audible as he parried the blows aimed at his throat and heart. If the figure was frustrated by this turn of events, the swordsman could not say, as he found his eyes meeting a blank white mask, the visage of a snarling beast where the mouth would be.

The male figure pushed against the man's katana, using the pressure to leap back a few meters. The triangular blade in his left hand – a kunai, as the boy would have recognized it – seemed to disappear as it flashed through the air at the swordsman. A _CLAAANG_ echoed through the rocky clearing as the man deflected the thrown blade, while the black-clad figure reached into a pouch and produced three shuriken that he also threw at the man.

With a single, oddly twisting swing, the man deflected all three shuriken that had been aimed in such a way as to prevent exactly that. While his blade was still extended, the white-masked figure wove under the tip and jabbed forward with the kunai in his right hand aimed directly at the swordsman's heart. With a twist, the swordsman took his left hand off his sword and landed a hard, open-handed blow with the heel of his palm on the black-clad figure's chest. Instead of the yielding flesh he expected, he found his fist clanging against an odd armor that absorbed the impact without a sound. Still, there was enough force behind the blow to push the masked assailant back a few paces.

As suddenly as the attack came it ended. The dark-clad figure twisted its head from the swordsman to the boy for a brief moment and then disappeared in a small cloud of leaves. The boy easily recognized the technique as one his sensei and many of the other ninja of his village used in their entrances and exits.

The man straightened after a full minute of standing in a crouched, ready stance and once again sheathed his sword. Slightly turning to view the boy, he asked, "friend of yours?"

"No! Why would you think that?" the young blonde rebutted, with perhaps a little more venom than he intended.

"He looked right at you before running off."

"So what? He probably thought you were trying to kill me and left when you didn't!"

"Why would you be defended so viciously by a man in a mask?"

At this the boy shut down and refused to say any more. The two shared an uneasy staring contest, the swordsman still half turned in the direction the assailant had come from.

After a few minutes the man relaxed fully from his pose and walked closer to the boy again.

"Come; let's get you up so I can look at your ribs. Those coughs worry me." The man said in his earlier even tone, and kneeled by the boy's side. The boy took his offered hand and managed to sit up with a grimace. His right hand slowly unzipped the top of his tracksuit while his left crawled towards the beige pouch attached to his leg by some wrappings. If the man noticed, he did not give any indication of it.

Finally the boy's upper body was exposed enough for the man to begin checking his ribs by careful pokes. The man seemed impassive as he worked, and after a few passes over the boy's chest had him fully reclothe himself.

"No damage, it seems, which tells me you might have cut your mouth and got some blood in your lungs during one of your coughing fits. If you feel the need to cough, do so, and whatever made it into your lungs should hopefully clear up soon," the man spoke, one hand on the boy's good shoulder as he looked him in the eye with a contemplative glint in his own. "Is there a town nearby? I've been on the road for a few days and haven't come across one yet."

"I think there's one a little while up the road. Sense- the guy in charge of my group said we would be there before dark before the cliff fell down on us," the boy answered, waving a hand vaguely in the direction the man had been traveling.

"It's good to hear you were not traveling alone, dressed in such bright colors," the man said. "Every bandit from here to the ocean could have seen you a mile off."

The boy grumbled under his breath, his arms folded and his face turned away from the man in a scowl.

"I don't appreciate being called old, and I don't believe I've met a god yet that claims Orange as their patron color," the man spoke, gathering a surprised glance from the boy, his face still turned away.

"You heard that?"

"Of course. You were hardly quiet enough to keep it from my ears."

"No one else seems to," the boy said levelly, but he couldn't quite hide the pain in his tone or in his eyes; at least not from the swordsman's gaze, which even when relaxed was sharp enough to make one not want to make sudden movements in front of him.

They were like a wolf's eyes, the boy decided, filled with curiosity and intent; curiosity of what you were, and intent on doing what it wanted when it figured you out.

Needless to say, the boy wasn't wholly sure he liked those eyes. They didn't scare him like some he had seen, but he knew the man in front of him would not shy away from blood, had shed it before.

"Who are you anyway? You're not a bandit are you?" he asked after another few moments of silence between them. He had relaxed his arms from their folded posturing by that point, and was turned back to face the swordsman.

"No. I travel from place to place. Seeing what this world has to offer," the swordsman replied in that quiet tone of his that the boy was starting to learn was like his sensei's; no matter how even it flowed like a stream, there was no question that just beneath the surface were sharp rocks and the potential for dangerous rapids.

"Oh. You got a name?" the boy wasn't wholly sure how to respond to the man's words, and so in the time honored tradition of unpredictable knuckleheads everywhere, predictably ignored all of the warning signs that painted the man in front of him as dangerous and decided to make a new friend.

"Delasuun."

"Day rah soon?"

The man lightly chuckled. "I see 'L' is a hard sound here. Let's go with Derasuun for now."

"Okay… I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" the boy happily exclaimed, trying to jump up before wincing and offering a simpering grin and a thumbs up instead, his other hand still on the rag on this cheek. "Hehe.. nice to meet you, Delasuun! And thanks for helping me!"

"I'm not one to abandon little boys in need of help," came the reply from the now named Delasuun.

"Hey!" was the expected indignant shout from Naruto.

Delasuun simple shrugged, and straightened as he replaced the ointment and wooden box in his sack.

"Hey, where're you goin'?!" Naruto asked, not quite ready to let someone who helped him without glaring (much) go so soon.

"To the town you mentioned. I'd like a night's sleep in an actual bed, and you're more likely to meet your group there if they haven't come looking for you over the cliff yet," Delasuun answered back unconcernedly. He didn't mention how odd it was that Naruto had been traveling off of the road, and apparently over the steep hills that framed the cliffs hanging over the path he had been traveling all day.

"All right, I'll come with you!" the now bright-eyed boy exclaimed as he slowly got to his feet. "I'll bet there's ramen and all kinds of cool people to meet there!"

"Very well. Don't strain yourself; you're going to be sore for the next several days from your fall. I'm rather surprised that a dislocated shoulder is the worse you suffered," Delasuun accepted, already finding his way back to the track. He knew there was something more going on than he could see, but also knew that he was unlikely to get much more out of the boy without threatening him. His evasions, painfully obvious though they were, told him that the boy had secrets he wasn't willing to share.

So long as those secrets did not come back to bite Delasuun in the ass, he was unworried. Better men than his masked assailant had tried, after all.

** - X -**

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An hour or so later the two were still making their way down the dusty track, the sun just beginning to kiss the horizon in anticipation of the coming night. Naruto had been his usual bundle of energy in praising Delasuun about his 'Awesome dattebayo!' sword play and trying to get him to teach the blonde how to do the same. A soft smile, barely visible, had settled on the taller traveler's somewhat ruddy lips, which were framed by a thin black goatee, a while ago and threatened to broaden into a full grin.

"The way of the sword is to walk the warrior's path, Naruto-san," the man said, with perhaps a little more animation than their first conversation had held, "this is both more and less than simple lifting a weapon. A true warrior is concerned less with his weapon and more with his heart. A man with his heart forged in truth and his eyes set on a worthy goal never lacks for what he needs to meet his ambitions."

The happily walking boy slowed for a few moments with a contemplative look on his face. It was clear to Delasuun that Naruto did not really understand what he had said.

"Consider this: many guests are coming to your home, and you wish to prepare a good meal for them. You yourself are very skilled at making sushi, but have no fish. Rather than be caught flat-footed, you instead prepare tempura for your guests and your goal has been met," Delasuun instructed, his smile slightly widening as the boy bowed his head with an – dare he say it – adorable expression of concentration on his brow.

"Huh? I guess that makes sense, even though I've never made dinner for anyone before. What does that have to do with using an awesome sword, though?" Naruto asked, confusion still evident in his eyes.

"I'm sure your mother could explain that scenario better," Delasuun said, noting how Naruto's features immediately darkened, a shadow seeping over his eyes. _'That boy's eyes really are too easy to read. I can see whole volumes of his life in one glance'_ the bald swordsman thought to himself.

"Never had a mother. Jiji says he doesn't know who she was," Naruto said dejectedly, his eyes downcast, even his spiky hair seeming to slump in depression.

"Hn. In any case, the point remains. If your goal is to defend a person, you will do so with a sword, with your fists, or with a rag if that is all you have," Delasuun continued, steering the conversation back to their earlier discussion. "Tools are just that – ways you use to accomplish your goal."

"I know about that!" was Naruto's growling reply, seeming to appreciate the swordsman's efforts to lighten the conversation. At least, lightening it in the way all twelve year-old boys appreciate: talking about sharp pointy objects and how cool they were to use!

"Really? Is that why -"

Delasuun's next question was cut off as, without warning, he felt fire shooting into the meat of his calf from a kunai he found stuck there as he twisted and fell. Just as he began positioning himself to stand again he saw the masked man from earlier – _too close!_ – rush up to him and strike him heavily in the temple with a closed fist. As he fell again, his vision swimming and head pounding, he noticed Naruto pull a similar kunai from his pouch and face the black-cloaked figure.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing!" the blonde shouted, "He was helping me get to the next town!"

The figure answered nothing and rushed at the boy, another kunai appearing in his palm as the two clashed, the sound of metal striking metal filling the air as the two danced too swiftly for most normal people to follow.

Delasuun was not most normal people.

He limped to his feet as he slid the throwing weapon slowly out of the leg, dropping it and a fair amount of blood on the ground in the process.

The masked man noticed this and threw six shuriken this time, two in a curving arc that would make the swordsman's earlier feat impossible. Delasuun stumbled forward, barely bringing his still sheathed sword up in time for four of the throwing stars to impact the wood heavily. He was too slow to stop the final two, but contorted his body enough for them to dig into either shoulder instead of his heart.

This seemed to enrage Naruto as the young ninja shouted a loud "No!" and ran straight into the black-clad man, both tumbling to the ground. The assailant quickly recovered, leaping up and all but stomping on the small of Naruto's back. A loud _whooof_ escaped the boy's lips as he rolled out of the way of the kunai the masked man threw where his head just was.

As Naruto rolled onto his knees he found himself wrapped around the other ninja's fist, blood splattering over the grass and dirt of the path. He collapsed, consciousness fading as he looked up into the dark holes of the man's mask, and beyond into his darker eyes. All he found there was silent death. The eyes promised nothing, held no emotion.

The eyes suddenly disappeared from his view as Delasuun's enraged face swam into place, his eyes all but on fire. Dimly, he saw the swordsman swing his blade, still sheathed – _why was it sheathed?_ – at the oddly aggressive ANBU that had attacked them both. A muted hiss of pain brought Naruto back to the world as he saw blood flowing from the ANBU's shoulder. As Delasuun withdrew his sword Naruto finally understood – the shuriken from earlier were still stuck in the sheath, prevented the swordsman from using the blade. In an unorthodox move, though, he had managed to strike the masked man with one of the impaled shuriken.

The young boy's body was wracked with pain, more pain than he had felt in a while, as more blood came flowing from his mouth. With a wrenching jerk, he looked down at his stomach, the source of the blinding pain, and found a kunai there. _'When he punched me.. he must have been holding a kunai…'_ It was getting harder for Naruto to think, the haze around his vision becoming too thick to see through. Just as the darkness was rushing in to meet him, he saw the swordsman that had helped him, that had treated him like a normal human being, falling to the earth with his own kunai in his middle.

Rage, white hot in its intensity, filled Naruto's whole being. Every time he found someone, every time there was a person that went out of their way to acknowledge him, they got hurt! They died! Iruka-sensei was the first, taking a potentially fatal fuuma shuriken to the back for him! Then there was Sasuke, leaping in front of him on the bridge, _"my body moved on it's own."_ The memory still haunted him, the weeks since that mission having done nothing to fade the sharpness of the wound in his heart.

And then Haku, kind Haku, who didn't want to hurt anybody, who taught him what it meant to be strong – _Haku lying in a pool of his own blood, that slime Gato kicking his cooling flesh_.

Something snapped. A presence, foul and suffocating in its might filled the small clearing. Naruto looked again at the kunai lodged in his stomach, saw the red seeping out, saw the blood _turn to chakra, fierce red CHAKRA the SCREAMED for release_.

He gripped the handle of the throwing tool, tugged it like it was a small thorn, and grimaced painfully as more of the blood-chakra flowed out. His blood-red eyes slowly lifted as he met the gaze of the not-ANBU – _for no loyal ANBU would defy jiji, would try to kill him_ – and just as slowly began rising from his kneeling position in the grass.

Naruto did not fully stand up, but remained bent over, hunched as though moving on four legs was more natural than two. More of the red chakra swirled around him in a shroud, his fingernails lengthening into claws, his normally thin whisker-marks thickening into fierce markings. With new fangs he snarled, rushed at the masked figure with the still bloody kunai first.

The cloaked man tried to dodge, but as he moved to Naruto's side the shroud of red chakra reached out for him with clawed hands that ripped deeply into his arm. A gasp of pain – the loudest noise the man had made yet – escaped the aggressor's lips as he reached into his pouch with his good hand for another kunai. Before he was able to fully withdraw the weapon he was forced to dodge backwards as Naruto swiftly turned in place and began stabbing his own kunai forward in a swift staccato that left swirling patterns of red in the air as the chakra flowed around him.

The masked man was about to leap into the trees to get away from the possessed boy when two things happened. The first was Delasuun, who had been forgotten in the terrifying shuffle, stabbing the kunai that had been in his leg into the ANBU's own calf. The second was Naruto's kunai finally meeting flesh, easily tearing through the bone-white armor on the cloaked man's chest and piercing his heart straight through.

The man died without a sound, sliding off of the now thoroughly blood-soaked blade onto his back, narrowly missing Delasuun, who was still lying prone on the path.

Delasuun spat off to the side as if he was trying to get rid of a bad taste in his mouth. He agonizingly crawled to his feet and turned to Naruto, only to tense up as the cloud of red power about him did not fade, and the look of rage in his eyes did not dissipate. Tears were streaming a steady course down his cheeks, hissing as they met the sheer power of his shroud.

The swordsman stood still as he looked into those eyes, and saw as the anger was replaced with shock, then sadness, and then fear. Seeing this, Delasuun took a deep breath and raised a calming hand.

"Naruto, stand down. The danger is passed. Breath steadily – you must calm down!" he urged gently, his tone as even as when they first met at the bottom of the rock slide.

Slowly, so slowly it seemed like he wasn't moving at all, the boy lowered himself to his knees, and then collapsed entirely as the red chakra disappeared from view and the quiet sound of his cries became more pronounced.

Delasuun looked down at the boy for a few minutes, and when it became apparent he was not going to move he turned to the body, only to find it sizzling softly in the deepening evening shadow. Finally, Naruto picked his head up at the sound and stared wide-eyed at the rapidly-shrinking tag of paper on the inside of the man's cloak.

"Delasuun, run! He's gonna explode!"

Without questioning how a dead man could explode, without mentioned that there was no smell of gunpowder, and without hesitation Delasuun grabbed the boy around his blood-soaked chest and leapt down the path as the sizzling stopped and an echoing boom broke the serenity of the cooling sky.

** - X -**

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** - X - **

**Tune in next time to see the continuing adventures of a fox and his boy! I'll be glad to answer any questions, and I hope I've avoided the pitfall of having my OC be too powerful or taking too much of the focus. Let me know what's up!**


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